The seminar convenes members of IJURR editorial board and colleagues from Sciences Po for a timely discussion on how war is reshaping the fabric of contemporary cities across the globe. This panel will examine the socio-spatial logics of warfare, the colonial and racial legacies that underpin them, and the new alliances forged between states, private actors, and illicit networks of violence. Panelists will unpack the diverse forms of dispossession produced by ongoing conflicts and spotlight the strategies of resistance that emerge in their wake. They will also reflect on the ethical and methodological challenges of researching urban life in contexts of war.

Hybrid orders and Urban War
Daniel E. Agbiboa (Harvard University) 
Ref: Mobility, Mobilization and Counter/Insurgency

Wars and Crises in Lebanon
Mona Fawaz (American University of Beirut)
Ref: Comment reconstruire le Liban ? De guerres en crises, un territoire face à des vagues de destruction

Is there a war in American cities?
Nik Theodore (University of Illinois)
Immigration enforcement, policing, ICE now? Insecure Communities: Latino Perceptions of Police Involvement in Immigration Enforcement (report, 2013).

Urban research under repression
Nausheen H. Anwar (IIED/IDS)
State Power, Civic Participation and the Urban Frontier: The Politics of the Commons in Karachi — (Antipode, 2012). 

Demolition and Dispossession
Liza Weinstein
Evictions: Reconceptualizing Housing Insecurity from the Global South — (City & Community, 2021) and Demolition and Dispossession: Toward an Understanding of State Violence in Millennial Mumbai (special issue, 2013). 

Discussants

Bruno Cousin, Sciences Po, CEE

Bruno Marot, USH, Coordinateur du Réseau des acteurs de l'habitat